APPENDIX C:

Introduction

According to the 1991 Health and Activity Limitation Survey, 17% of Albertans and 16% of Canadians were identified as having one or more disabilities. The 1991 Aboriginal Peoples Survey identified that 31% of Canadian Aboriginal persons had one or more disabilities. The disabilities included in these studies were mobility, agility, mental health, speech, auditory, visual, and learning. Albertans may require a variety of personal supports, technical or assistive devices, employment supports, education and training aids, and financial assistance - whether they reside in institutions or in the community.

The Alberta government has 11 ministries that administer approximately 34 disability-related services or supports. Each program has its own eligibility requirements and serves populations differentiated by age, socio economic status, education, employment status, severity of impairment, and nature of disability. Consequently, the eligibility of persons with disabilities for supports varies significantly depending on their impairment, age, and socio economic status.

However, the accessibility of disability supports in Alberta also depends on the individual’s awareness of the supports, capacity to request assistance, and the availability of the services in the person’s community (i.e. rural/remote). Recent changes to government policies and planning have reduced the scope of disability supports from full intervention (early intervention, prevention, and on-going support) to secondary and tertiary intervention (supports post diagnosis). The disability community has expressed its frustration with the Alberta government for not consulting stakeholders on its decision to reduce the scope of disability supports.

In 2000/2001, the Government of Alberta spent approximately $1.7B on disability supports. Despite this large expenditure, Albertans with disabilities report:

• Unequal access to supports based on disability and age.
• Inaccessible workplace and learning environments.
• Discriminatory attitudes in the work, business, healthcare, and education environments.
• Unaffordable and inappropriate housing options.
• Limited access to necessary adaptive technology and assistive devices.

The root of these concerns appears to stem from the absence of a government policy for persons with disabilities to guide the annual expenditure of the $1.7B. This issue is further complicated by inconsistent interpretation and application of program policies across the myriad of regional service delivery agents, authorities and governance systems.

Existing Reporting Framework - Programs for Persons with Disabilities in Alberta

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An accountability framework has been developed in response to the following provincial climate of disability issues:

• The absence of an Alberta government disability policy framework.
• The significant percentage of the provincial budget designated to funding disability supports.
• The lack of understanding by government and community of the inter-relationships amongst disability supports.
• The impact of governance models on the delivery of programs for persons with disabilities.
• The limited opportunities for comprehensive and coordinated input into programs by various stakeholders: persons with disabilities, family members, service providers, and funding bodies.

 

The Premier’s Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities has identified an accountability framework that is focused on:

• Collecting information from the various stakeholders.
• Identifying common interests across disability and lifespan that can form the foundation of a provincial disability policy.
• Evaluating the inclusiveness of new and future government activities.
• Measuring existing disability services with standards identified by local and international disability entities.
• Monitoring the Alberta government’s commitment to full citizenship for Albertans with disabilities.

What is an Accountability Framework?

The goal of the Alberta Disability Strategy is to improve the status of persons with disabilities in Alberta. An accountability framework is an outline for identifying, evaluating, and monitoring disability issues in Alberta and on a national level. The accountability framework consists of four tools designed to gather information about activities in the living, learning, working, recreational and political environments of persons with disabilities. The products from the accountability framework are structured to aid the Alberta government in its design of a disability policy that will assist with:

• Administrating and evaluating disability supports.
• Monitoring the inter-relationships amongst supports.
• Implementing the commitments made to Albertans with disabilities by the provincial and Canadian governments.

Throughout the development and implementation of the Alberta Disability Strategy, stakeholders have acknowledged the need for securing the commitments made to persons with disabilities by the Alberta Government. The cyclical pattern of government initiatives related to disability has resulted in little to no satisfaction for Albertans with disabilities.

Components of the Accountability Framework

The four tools in the accountability framework of the Alberta Disability Strategy include:

• Inventory of Programs and Services for Persons with Disabilities.
• Disability Lens.
• Cross-Canada Scan of Provincial and Territorial Disability Initiatives.
• Status Tool – Performance Outcomes, Indicators, and Measures.

The relationship amongst the tools is in the information that is produced by the various analyses of disability issues. These tools may be used individually or collectively.

Inventory of Programs and Services for Persons with Disabilities

The Inventory is a policy analysis tool for identifying information about existing disability-related services that are financed by the Government of Alberta. The Inventory includes questions about the scope of the program, service delivery, service recipient interests, financial challenges, quality control, barriers to inclusiveness, and family and assistants’ interests. Information yielded from the Inventory is directed into two areas:

• Feedback for programs and services.
• Baseline of information about programs and services.

An intended outcome of the Inventory is the establishment of relationships between the Council and program representatives. The function of the Inventory in the Alberta Disability Strategy is to provide analysis of disability interests in Alberta. A secondary function of the Inventory is to provide evaluative information on the identified programs, which is based on criteria in existing literature and research on disability.

In the short-term the primary user of the Inventory would be an external stakeholder of the government involved with persons with disabilities in Alberta. In the current stages of the Alberta Disability Strategy, the Premier’s Council has assumed responsibility for developing and carrying out the initial run of the Inventory.

The user would select a program or service that has identified persons with disabilities as users and receives funding from the Government of Alberta. Secondly, the user would apply the program information to the Inventory. Because the Inventory was not designed to collect cumulative data, each program or service must be reviewed separately. Some of the information sources for the Inventory include legislation, policy and other materials that directly reflect the program or service (i.e. pamphlets, user guides etc.).

The questions in the Inventory are designed to force a “yes” or “no” response. Where the question is not answerable from the prepared materials of the program, the user would arrange to speak with a program manager for clarification. The user will make the notation to reflect this deficit in the comments section of the Inventory and highlight the specifics of the question in the summary report. The product of the Inventory is an analysis report of the programs and services for persons with disabilities in Alberta for a given time period.

Cross Canada Scan of Provincial and Territorial Disability Initiatives

In June 2000, the Secretariat conducted a scan with 6 of the 11 representatives from the Council on Citizens with Disabilities. The tool consists of 12 questions that solicit information about provincial and territorial initiatives related to In Unison and provincial/territorial-funded supports for persons with disabilities. The provinces and territories are asked about their framework for accountability and whether there is a provincial or territorial disability policy.

Information from the pilot of the scan has contributed to the development of the Alberta Disability Strategy and accountability framework. In order to monitor and share information about disability activity in Alberta and across Canada, it is recommended that future applications of the scan be conducted annually and information shared with various stakeholders.

Disability Lens

The Disability Lens refers to a framework for identifying and analyzing government services, programs, legislation and policies for their inclusiveness of the interests of persons with disabilities. A premise of this framework is that persons with disabilities have not been recognized by governments as participatory stakeholders in the planning, development, implementation and evaluation of their activities. Traditionally, they have been viewed as receivers of government activities versus active participants in the creation, implementation, and evaluation of government activities. This absence of their voice has produced an opportunity to create a framework for identifying disability interests in government activities.

The Alberta Disability Lens was developed with the goal of improving the inclusiveness of disability interests in government activities. Consequently, its primary audience is the Alberta government. The anticipated secondary users of the lens are identified as municipal governments, federal government departments based in Alberta, organizations receiving funding from the provincial and municipal governments, community organizations, and the corporate community.

The Alberta Disability Lens is divided in to three sections: basic lens, demographic perspective, and sectoral perspective. The first section consists of a series of 20 questions that aid the user in identifying the inclusiveness of the user’s initiative. To assist the user with answering these questions, existing inclusiveness frameworks have been provided for reference. Section two consists of five segments that acknowledge the homogeneity of the interests and viewpoints of persons with disabilities. The perspectives included in section two include children, women, seniors, Aboriginal persons, and multicultural persons. The third component of the Alberta Disability Lens represents the issues that transcend disability classification and includes employment, education, housing, transportation, and recreation/active living.

After the user has completed the three sections, there is an opportunity to assess her responses and to rate the initiative for its inclusiveness of persons with disabilities. Depending on the rating of inclusiveness, the user will be referred to a collection of strategies for improving or maintaining the inclusiveness rating of the initiative under review.

Applying the Alberta Disability Lens to New Government Activities

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Status Tool

The status tool is a policy analysis tool that assesses issues impacting the status of Albertans with disabilities through a study of performance outcomes, indicators, and measures. From a series of community consultations, stakeholders have identified the global and sectoral outcomes to be included in the Alberta Disability Strategy. The performance outcomes consist of two parts: visionary and specific. The global outcome is to improve the status of persons with disabilities. The global outcome of full citizenship reflects the importance of the four core supports of the Alberta Disability Strategy: Personal Supports, Education and Learning Supports, Financial Supports and Employment Supports. (See specific sections elsewhere in this report for details regarding these supports and expected outcomes).

The measurement portion of the Status Tool is the data collection instrument used to gather and evaluate information about persons with disabilities in Alberta. It is anticipated that the Premier’s Council will be the primary user of the Status Tool so that information on the status of persons with disabilities can be reported to government and the community on a yearly or bi-yearly basis. A second identified user of the Status Tool might be the ministerial business planning units in the Alberta Government. Where applicable, ministries can participate in the data collection of the Status Tool and report on the outcomes and indicators in their respective business plans.

The initial application of the instrument will act as a benchmark or baseline for the existing status of persons with disabilities in Alberta in the areas of Employment, Personal Supports, Financial Supports, Education and Learning, and Full Citizenship. Subsequent applications of the instrument will be compared to the baseline. The comparison information will be used to inform government and stakeholders about how the systemic changes in disability supports are impacting or not impacting the status of Albertans.

Applying the Status Tool

Conclusion

It is difficult to conclusively comment on the implementation of the accountability framework since its activities are directly dependent on its relationship to the Alberta Disability Strategy. It is anticipated that the accountability framework will be used by the Alberta government and provincially-funded entities to assist with the following activities:

• Aid decision-makers in developing and analyzing policy and legislation that is inclusive of persons with disabilities.
• Evaluate the inclusiveness of provincial activities regarding persons with disabilities.
• Monitor Alberta’s status on disability initiatives in relation to other provinces and territories.
• Report on the progress to improve programs and services for persons with disabilities.

As the implementation process for the Alberta Disability Strategy is identified, the various tools in the accountability framework will be assigned to their designated roles and implemented as part of the evolution of the Strategy.